Nero

By Ahead Software $69 For Windows 98/ME/XP/2000 Requires CD-R/RW drive www.nero.com Nero remains the preferred CD-burning software for many in the gear-head set. However, this reviewer must say that Nero's biggest competitor, Roxio's Easy CD Creator Platinum, is a better product for most PC owners out to burn CD-R or CD-RW discs. The Nero interface opens with an utterly simple screen with a happy little grinning disc icon asking if one wants to copy a CD. If all you ever do is make backup copies of music and software discs, there is no easier way to do it than to click on this icon.

"Peter Nero and Pops at the Philharmonic" may not be the most graceful title for a concert series, but it looks like the most successful element in the Florida Philharmonic`s lineup this season. Three of four venues for the series are sold out; and business appears to have picked up at the only slow- selling location, the Jackie Gleason Theater in Miami Beach. Wednesday evening`s opener was quite well attended. The crowd did include some invited guests -- 100 members of the armed forces hurricane relief force in South Dade.

[Federal Reserve Board Chairman] Alan Greenspan decided to cool off the overheated economy, which as for now is undergoing slow agony, not from overheating but overcooling. Obviously, his monetary policy may bring us rampant recession, which might cause immense suffering to millions. Now he will try to revive the sick patient by speedy injections of low interest rates. Please, save us from ourselves. It goes without saying that Greenspan is playing Russian Roulette. Unfortunately and regretfully, he is the master of our destinies, wielding the scepter of prosperity or recession.

In the 1963 film Sunday in New York, the character played by Rod Taylor says, "Nobody plays piano like Peter Nero." Four decades later, Nero remains one of the country's premier popularizers of classical music and jazz, as both pianist and conductor. Formerly the pops conductor of the Florida Philharmonic, Nero will return to South Florida this week with his current ensemble, the Philly Pops, which he has led for 25 years. He'll also lead a six-piece jazz combo in a program titled "All That Jazz."

He's recorded more than 25 albums, composed motion picture scores, performed at the invitation of Presidents Bush and Clinton, and won two Grammy awards. But one of pianist Peter Nero's greatest pleasures comes from performing in South Florida. Tonight, Nero will open his fifth season of "Pops at the Philharmonic" at the Kravis Center for the Performing Arts in West Palm Beach. Nero begins the four-program Pops series with "My Way," which features some of his personal favorites, as well as a tribute to his friend, Frank Sinatra.

What a cozy get-together Jan and Joe Jessup hosted in their Boca Raton waterfront digs Sunday night. Guest of honor was Peter Nero, who will be conducting the new Florida Philharmonic Pops starting in September. (Jan had Nero`s music tinkling from the electronic grand piano all evening. She thinks of everything.) The 50 or so guests, Philharmonic supporters all, are pretty good talkers. So is Nero, a man of wide-ranging interests (i.e., he knows everything there is to know about computers)

"Peter Nero and Pops at the Philharmonic" continues to be the orchestra's most successful series, selling out again at three venues in Broward and Palm Beach counties. Tickets remain only for the series at the Gleason Theater in Miami Beach. Capitalizing on this popularity, Nero and the Philharmonic will give a fund-raising gala for the orchestra Dec. 4 at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts in Fort Lauderdale. (A similar concert was held at the end of last season at the Kravis Center in West Palm Beach.

The Florida Philharmonic's 1996-97 Peter Nero series promises a variety of musical programs from Broadway to opera to Frank Sinatra. "Peter Nero and Pops at the Philharmonic" will present four different programs next season at two Palm Beach County locations: the Florida Atlantic University Center Auditorium, 777 Glades Road, east of Interstate 95, Boca Raton; and the Kravis Center for the Performing Arts, 701 Okeechobee Blvd., east of I-95, West Palm Beach. Other venues: the Broward Center for the Performing Arts in Fort Lauderdale, Bailey Hall at Broward Community College in Davie, and the Jackie Gleason Theatre of the Performing Arts in Miami.

If you've been trying to hear the Florida Philharmonic's Peter Nero and Pops at the Philharmonic, this is your chance. The program, which has been sold out by subscription the past three years, will play at the Florida Atlantic University Auditorium on Sunday afternoons, thanks to an expansion in the performance schedule. Performances for Nero and the Philharmonic's 1995-96 season will begin in December with Let's Dance, featuring dance music from Vienna to big band to ballroom. That will be followed in January by To B or Not to B, hits from composers whose names begin with the letter B, such as Bacharach, Berlin and Bizet.

Peter Nero negotiated labor contracts as a shop steward, so when the 10-year cable TV contract was up for Condo One in Palm Greens, he drove a hard bargain. It took six offers by Comcast for him to sign a bulk contract with the cable giant for 684 units in the adult community west of Delray Beach. He used the contract with another community as a basis and explored satellite TV, which wasn't doable, because Palm Greens crosses two public streets. Peter is proud of the deal he finessed as president, and the board signed off on it. The contract has a confidentiality clause, so we won't get Peter in trouble by divulging the terms.

One of the things I don't understand about liberal thinkers is their desire for big government, their lust for a giant colossus in Washington that, in theory, would solve all our problems. How delusionary is this? Why don't liberals just demand the country be handed over to the people who run Disneyland? Those of us old enough to remember lining up for gasoline during the Carter administration understand that, for three decades, the federal government has known America is vulnerable to oil profiteers.